In 1968 Piazzolla and the Uruguayan-born poet Horacio Ferrer made a work for the stage that they called a tango operita, in two parts. Its heroine, María, is the city itself: she is born in a street of Buenos Aires, dies, and is born again as a shadow. It was premiered in May 1968 with the singer Amelita Baltar.

Ferrer’s words

Ferrer’s poems are in a Buenos Aires of his own, full of lunfardo, the slang of the port, and surreal turns. They are hard to sing and easy to love. Piazzolla wrote the music for a small orchestra and a narrator, and for a voice that has to be able to speak, to sing and to whisper.

On the avenue

The photograph above: two dancers on Avenida Corrientes, under the Obelisk, by Manticora87 (CC BY-SA 4.0).